TRI FIRE and QUAD FIRE leaked...

[SpiffMistroII]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2858&p=3

One of the oddities of this multi-GPU implementation is the splitting up of the connector that links the GPUs. Both are required for the driver to enable CrossFire, but only one is technically necessary. As bridges will be bundled with graphics cards, everyone who purchases 2 X1950 Pro cards will have two bridges. This eliminates the need for end users to buy bridges separately or rely on them shipping with their multi-GPU motherboard. When pressed further about why two connectors were used, ATI asked us to envision a system with 3 or 4 graphics cards installed. With 2 channels, cards can be easily chained together. This does offer ATI a little more flexibility than NVIDIA in scaling multi-GPU configurations, but it is also a little more cumbersome and offers more small parts to lose. Overall, though, the 2 channel configuration is a good thing.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/Genocide737/9.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/Genocide737/8.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/Genocide737/2.jpg

[SH64]

Well this shows how ATi is really not ignoring the QuadSLI threat as it was showing before.
hmm TriFire R600 ?? would be interesting to see :D

speaking of which i like the idea of bundling the bridges with the graphics cards rather than sticking with the ones the come with the mobo .. hope nvidia follows the same route.

[Bman212121]

Well this shows how ATi is really not ignoring the QuadSLI threat as it was showing before.
hmm TriFire R600 ?? would be interesting to see :D

speaking of which i like the idea of bundling the bridges with the graphics cards rather than sticking with the ones the come with the mobo .. hope nvidia follows the same route.

The reason why they were coming with the boards is most likely because of spacing issues. If they came with the cards they would have to be made of cable and not hard plastic. Then you would probably have slack in some setups where you only have a single slot between the cards if their sli bridge could be used on boards with larger gaps.

So it looks like they are planning on daisy chaining the cards then? I wonder if a Tri setup would benifit more if the 2 spare cards were linked directly to the master, or if it wouldn't make a difference.

[SpiffMistroII]

Well this shows how ATi is really not ignoring the QuadSLI threat as it was showing before.
hmm TriFire R600 ?? would be interesting to see :D

speaking of which i like the idea of bundling the bridges with the graphics cards rather than sticking with the ones the come with the mobo .. hope nvidia follows the same route.


A lower end GPU like a RV630 in TRI FIRE seems sexy. Or maybe a RV660 in TRI FIRE.

But yes, I do wan't to see TRI FIRE R600 #'s asap. :)

[SpiffMistroII]

The reason why they were coming with the boards is most likely because of spacing issues. If they came with the cards they would have to be made of cable and not hard plastic. Then you would probably have slack in some setups where you only have a single slot between the cards if their sli bridge could be used on boards with larger gaps.

So it looks like they are planning on daisy chaining the cards then? I wonder if a Tri setup would benifit more if the 2 spare cards were linked directly to the master, or if it wouldn't make a difference.


Well... I don't think their is master or slave anymore. :D

[Dazz]

They also have the X1950Pro cards and crossfire seems impresisve.

[Bman212121]

Well... I don't think their is master or slave anymore. :D

Yea, sorry. What I meant was the GPU that is connected to your monitor.

[SpiffMistroII]

Yea, sorry. What I meant was the GPU that is connected to your monitor.

Well, in that case... I don't really think so? hmmmm I wonder if you can have multible monitors over 2? like 4,5, or even 6?

[superklye]

It seems to me that ATI should get a working DUAL card solution before working about triple and quad card solutions out to the masses. :rolleyes2

[|MaguS|]

It seems to me that ATI should get a working DUAL card solution before working about triple and quad card solutions out to the masses. :rolleyes2

Why? Crossfire is SOOOO popular, I mean look at the amount of people using it...

[SpiffMistroII]

It seems to me that ATI should get a working DUAL card solution before working about triple and quad card solutions out to the masses. :rolleyes2

Besides the dongle, I find Crossfire Really impressive. Super AA is a nice feature.

I mean to answer you statement, Crossfire works rather well, and will get better with the x1950pro.

[superklye]

Besides the dongle, I find Crossfire Really impressive. Super AA is a nice feature.

I mean to answer you statement, Crossfire works rather well, and will get better with the x1950pro.
Really? That's not what I've heard or seen. If it works so well, why isn't it as widespread as SLI, in conversation, if not usage.

ATI needs to get a stable motherboard platform followed by stable drivers that actually harness and exploit all the benefits of Crossfire. They haven't done that, and instead, have floundered over and over again.

I stand by my original statement: they need to get a dual-card system solid and reliable before even considering thinking about a triple- and quad-card solution.

[mullet]

:D
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=21209&stc=1&d=1161144921

[Redeemed]

:D
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=21209&stc=1&d=1161144921

Holy crap. Those two cards in that pic just look sexy. :captnkill:

I don't know, 3 R600's would probably pwn the $h!t out of 2 G80s- atleast I'd hope that it would. :p

I'm stuck SLi this round, but it looks as if CrossFire is starting to shape up. I'm already planning a new build for either X-mas next year, or my b-day of '08. Which ever date it'd be, I might consider CrossFire instead of SLi. If I end up with CrossFire, that will be my second graphics solution from ATi... ever. I've been about 99% nVidia. :)

[Xion X2]

Really? That's not what I've heard or seen. If it works so well, why isn't it as widespread as SLI, in conversation, if not usage.

It hasn't been out as long as SLi has, for one...

And SLi is far from perfect. Not being able to triple-buffer/vsync in DirectX really blows, not to mention all of the driver issues people have had with the GX2 slicing their performance in half.

[SpiffMistroII]

Really? That's not what I've heard or seen. If it works so well, why isn't it as widespread as SLI, in conversation, if not usage.

ATI needs to get a stable motherboard platform followed by stable drivers that actually harness and exploit all the benefits of Crossfire. They haven't done that, and instead, have floundered over and over again.

I stand by my original statement: they need to get a dual-card system solid and reliable before even considering thinking about a triple- and quad-card solution.


Crossfire vs SLI is a totally different thread, something I don't wan't to get too deep into.

To answer you though, My Asus MVP 200 has been rock stable since I bought it. It OC's ok, but it's stable as a SLI board. Crossfire came out after SLI, and ATI made the mistake with the master card and dongle. Other than that, drivers from 6.6 up to now, have greatly enhanced crossfire, and made it more flexible. This trend should continue on to R600.

[SpiffMistroII]

:D
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=21209&stc=1&d=1161144921


That board is RD600. and that Ram is actully OCZ 1333mhz ddr2.

This brings up a qustion, Will Tri-Fire work on RD600? hmmmm...

[SpiffMistroII]

Really? That's not what I've heard or seen. If it works so well, why isn't it as widespread as SLI, in conversation, if not usage.

ATI needs to get a stable motherboard platform followed by stable drivers that actually harness and exploit all the benefits of Crossfire. They haven't done that, and instead, have floundered over and over again.

I stand by my original statement: they need to get a dual-card system solid and reliable before even considering thinking about a triple- and quad-card solution.


http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE5OCwxNiwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=



When we teamed up both video cards for CrossFire and SLI we saw some large differences in performance. Once again Oblivion performed better with the Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire platform. We were able to have shadow filtering enabled with very smooth performance. Half Life 2: Episode 1 showed an even larger performance gap with the Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire pulling way ahead of the BFGTech GeForce 7900 GS OC SLI. Even Prey, which is based on the DOOM 3 engine which usually favors NVIDIA hardware simply performed faster with two Radeon X1950 Pro’s in CrossFire. Ghost Recon once again favored the NVIDIA platform and World of Warcraft was much closer between the video cards but the BFGTech GeForce 7900 GS OC pulled ahead with better antialiasing image quality.

Native CrossFire

We are glad that ATI choose to implement an internal connection for CrossFire. The dongle presented many problems and places for issues to crop up. CrossFire has gone through many evolutions since its introduction and it is good to know that this will continue. In its first iteration CrossFire was very troublesome. Not only was it difficult to get working but it didn’t even support high resolutions with high refresh rates which gamers game at. Thankfully this was resolved in a later iteration and a new compositing chip was used. However, that pesky dongle still remained. It proved to be such a deterring factor that we wrote an editorial about SLI and CrossFire and in it we explained all the peril’s of that dongle.

With today’s announcement of this new CrossFire technology we can’t find any major flaws with it. It is internal, it uses bridge connectors which hold firmly in place, there is no chance for interference or degradation of video signal and it worked the first time we installed it. In fact, we literally had no problems with CrossFire this time. We simply installed the video cards, installed the bridge connectors, installed drivers and CrossFire successfully enabled the very first time. In fact, it enabled much quicker than with dongled CrossFire. With dongled CrossFire it would take a good 10-20 seconds for CrossFire to enable, but with Native CrossFire it literally was enabled in less than 5 seconds.

The compositing engine is now built into each GPU. This completely eradicates the need for a “Master” or “CrossFire Edition” video card. With Native CrossFire all that is required is two of the same GPUs. You do need to make sure they are the same ASICs though, you cannot for example CrossFire an X1950 Pro and an X1650 Pro or X1900 XT, they need to be the same video card. They can however have difference memory sizes and clock speeds. What will happen is that it will use the lower memory size or lower clock speed of the two video cards.

One interesting thing we noticed during CrossFire operation compared to SLI was the amount of slowdown as we increased the game settings and resolution. Both video cards sport 256MB of RAM, so as we increase the resolution and AA settings it will have to swap out textures from memory. Well, we found that CrossFire actually seems to do this smoother, or at least it felt that way in games. The higher we would go in game settings, the smoother CrossFire felt compared to SLI at the same high settings. It isn’t something that can be shown in frames per second; it was more of a feeling. The games just “felt” smoother at very high settings.

Native CrossFire is here to stay. There will be another video card being announced later this month at a lower price point that also supports Native CrossFire. You can bet that future video cards will use Native CrossFire as well. The only downside (which is common to both ATI and NVIDIA) is that you cannot enable multiple displays when CrossFire is enabled. Without CrossFire you will have the option to enable four displays, but once you enable CrossFire only one will work as it is with NVIDIA’s SLI.

The Bottom Line

ATI has come with a flurry of punches lately trying to take back the “video card crown” at very affordable price points. They started by introducing the Radeon X1950 XTX (the fastest single-GPU video card you can get) at only $450 MSRP. With today’s announcement ATI is poised to take the $199 pricing segment as well. The Radeon X1950 Pro performs exceptionally well for the price; it competes easily with NVIDIA’s GeForce 7900 GS providing a better experience in most games.

ATI has made a couple of noteworthy innovations today. ATI are the first to market with an 80nm GPU proving the technology is ready. ATI has also proven their Native CrossFire technology is solid and user friendly. These key technologies are a peek into what ATI has in store for us with their next generation products. If you are in the market now for an affordable video card with fast performance in today’s games the Radeon X1950 Pro video card will fit the bill nicely.


As for the part when he said that crossfire feels smoother even though the sli set up had higher frames, this is problely due to latency with AFR.

[NoWayDude]

So, the internal connector that ATI and some of theyr fanbois so much cursed Nvidia for, is now good enough for them?:)

Regarding the pick above, I doubt that that card is RD600. Not with one slot cooling only.

[schuey74]

Regarding the pick above, I doubt that that card is RD600. Not with one slot cooling only.
RD600 is the mobo, R600 is the next-gen GPU. :)

[NoWayDude]

RD600 is the mobo, R600 is the next-gen GPU. :)


Ah, I was getting confused. Thnx

[SpiffMistroII]

So, the internal connector that ATI and some of theyr fanbois so much cursed Nvidia for, is now good enough for them?:)

Regarding the pick above, I doubt that that card is RD600. Not with one slot cooling only.

I never rembered any attacks on the internal connector? hmmmmm....

and yea, that board is RD600.:p

[NoWayDude]

I never rembered any attacks on the internal connector? hmmmmm....

and yea, that board is RD600.:p

I know, realised too late :(
Long day babysiting .......